


you know me well

by thatgirlwho



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 19:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11904879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirlwho/pseuds/thatgirlwho
Summary: “You just wanted it to be perfect, yeah?” Eggsy finishes Harry’s hanging thought, a small smile turning up the corners of his lips when he pulls back and Harry turns to face him.Harry frowns, perturbed, and looks down to absently flick his hand at some lint on his trousers. “Something like that, yes.”





	you know me well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alethia_II](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia_II/gifts).



> For alethiaii who has been having a rough month and requested some fluffy Hartwin. I hope this makes you smile and makes your day a bit brighter. 
> 
> Love to ColinFilth and futuredescending for the beta work <3
> 
> To listen: [Know Me Well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwjGH7USsdI) by Roo Panes which is lovely and aching and sweet.

Despite what a vast number of people may think, Harry Hart _could_ be a man of practically unlimited patience. He has sat through hours of dry municipal by-law delegations just to keep an eye on a mark and didn’t fidget once; he had waited seven years for Merlin to finally admit that he was inordinately in love with ABBA (Merlin had become lazy in hiding his preferences, shutting off the music a beat too late when Harry barged into his office, but Harry never prodded—too much); he could sit in rush hour traffic in London and not succumb to cursing, swearing or grumbling; he sat in on lunch with Chester King once a week for nearly twenty-two years, without fail. Yes, Harry could even be said to have the patience of a saint.

But of course there are a few times that immediately try this patience, though it seems like the sort of thing that most people could take in stride: rude, burly goons in pubs and oblivious, bumbling professors, though in his defense he did have a rather trying day.

And apparently flustered, wide-eyed maître d' frantically scrolling through their reservations would be shortly added to that list.

“What do you mean, it’s not there?”

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr Hart,” the woman is saying, worried face lit by the glow of the computer screen, “there must have been a mistake.”

He had made the reservation, he is absolutely sure of it. A month ago, he had made a point of it, set the reminder in his phone and before Hamish had tried to do it for him, because he had wanted it to be perfect.

“It’s our anniversary,” Harry tells the woman, even though he knows it will do no good. He’s clutching on his scarf and gloves, uncomfortably aware of how Eggsy was starting to shuffle next to him. “I’ve been coming here for years.”

“I know, Mr Hart, and I do apologize,” she says and she really does sound sorry, which makes Harry blanch in shame at having gone after her. “We’re booked for the night. I don’t think we could fit you in.”

Well, Harry is willing to wait this one out if he must. He could drum up some patience, just to be obstinate. He did always like making a point through dramatics.

Eggsy must sense this because he steps in with his charming, placating smile and tells the woman politely, “It’s okay, an honest mistake,” as he rests his hand on Harry’s elbow, tapping one finger on the inside of his arm, a gentle reminder. 

Harry pulls on his gloves, the curt nod he gives her conveying what he hopes is both reticent thanks and a polite apology, and leaves the crowded restaurant with Eggsy close behind.

It’s not that he’s truly upset—he’s just incredibly agitated and thoroughly defeated. Because just as he is mostly a man of patience, he is also a man with a need for absolute and stubborn perfection. 

“Hey.” They’re standing on the kerb waiting for the taxi to pull around, and Eggsy reaches out to take Harry’s hand in his, squeezing when Harry allows their fingers to wind together. “It’s alright, yeah? It’s not a big deal.”

“I know,” Harry sighs after a moment. “I apologize, it’s just—” Harry stops, closing his mouth around the rising disappointment in his voice, and steps forward open the taxi door for Eggsy, sliding in after him.

In the warmth of the taxi with their knees pressed together in the small space, Harry feels even more discouraged; it’s not that they had many chances for nights out like this, despite their best efforts. Working a life around one erratic schedule was difficult enough, but having to coordinate that with Eggsy’s equally conflicting lineup of missions and debriefs and last-minute calls to HQ only made Harry frustrated and sullen, even though he knew exactly what to expect from the start.

And when he had gone to great lengths to have their limited time together perfectly planned, it somehow all still went to shit. He wouldn’t say it’s just his luck but it seems vaguely similar to it, which makes the swallowing of it all that more bitter.

Eggsy leans into him when the taxi pulls into traffic, humming contentedly, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder to look up at him, a gentle concern stitched into the furrow of his brow, the flickering gaze of his eyes. “You just wanted it to be perfect, yeah?” Eggsy finishes Harry’s hanging thought, a small smile turning up the corners of his lips when he pulls back and Harry turns to face him. 

Harry frowns, perturbed, and looks down to absently flick his hand at some lint on his trousers. “Something like that, yes.” 

“You gotta stop worrying about things like that,” Eggsy tells him, shifting closer until he’s resting his full weight against Harry, lacing their hands back together. Even through the kidskin gloves, he can feel the soothing warmth of Eggsy’s palm pressed against his and brings about a sense of calm that Harry finds himself sinking back into the seat, relaxing like someone’s loosening all the tightly knotted strings holding up his limbs. “It don’t have to be perfect all the time, right?”

“No,” Harry concedes, though he doesn’t quite feel it at this moment, “I guess it doesn’t.”

Eggsy kisses him, sweetly on the corner of his mouth. Harry’s eyes flutter closed, a perfect familiar warmth unfurling in his chest and he smiles briefly to himself, all of a sudden his disappointment turning quickly to gratitude, forever amazed at this simple, loving influence Eggsy still has over him. Harry turns into the kiss, feels Eggsy’s lips pull into a wide smile, and Harry kisses him back deeply, pulling his hand from Eggsy’s grasp to cup his cheek.

“I am sorry,” Harry says, “for how the night turned out. I was certain I had—”

“Harry,” Eggsy says, stern and affectionate and kind, and taps his finger gently over Harry’s right eye, “you gotta get out of your own head every once in awhile. It’s fine, yeah?” He takes a moment to search Harry’s face carefully, the flickering blue-green of his eyes taking on a glint and spark of gold from the street lights passing them by outside. Then he smiles, brilliant and dazzling and utterly gorgeous that Harry can’t help but kiss him again, and Eggsy’s laughing into it.

They’re almost home, Eggsy snug up against Harry’s side with his head resting on Harry’s shoulder, the cab quiet except for the hush of the world moving past them outside the car and Eggsy’s steady breathing ghosting along Harry’s chest, when Eggsy suddenly sits up and raps his knuckles on the tinted partition.

“Pull up just here,” Eggsy says when the driver has it rolled partway down. “Thanks, mate.”

“What now?” He feels detached in a lovely sort of way, dreamy with the solitude of the ride home. He wonders why he ever thought a crowded, noisy restaurant was the perfect way to spend their anniversary when he was perfectly content just sitting with Eggsy in the back of this car, watching the waning rosy dusk of twilight paint Eggsy’s chin and jaw a golden-pink, delicate shadows falling on his cheeks when his eyes closed, perfectly alright passing the night listening to his happy little sighs, letting Eggsy trail his fingertips over the palm of his hand, trace the lines of his fingers, come back up to curve around his wrist.

“Well, we still gotta eat, don’t we? And I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m not really up for cooking nothing tonight.”

Harry looks out the window when the driver turns off the road to see the glowing KFC sign pass overhead as they trundle up to the drive-thru.

“I’ll even promise not to eat all the popcorn chicken this time,” Eggsy says with smirk thrown over his shoulder as he rolls down the window, “but just for tonight.”

Harry listens as Eggsy places the order over the intercom: a six piece bargain bucket and a side order of popcorn chicken and fries because Eggsy has a problem he refuses to address and always Harry secretly frets over his sodium intake before he reminds himself Eggsy could probably subsist on cheese sandwiches and Pot Noodles without any lasting repercussions.

“Shit, got no cash,” Eggsy mutters, patting at his pockets, his wallet open on his lap.

Harry hands him two tenners from his own wallet and lets Eggsy pay the bored looking teenager standing in the waxy light of the restaurant, who raises one eyebrow in what Harry’s sure is wry amusement, staring at Eggsy in his neatly coiffed hair and four thousand pound suit and cashmere scarf, hefting a greasy bag of fried chicken into the backseat of their chauffeur driven taxi at eight o’clock at night.

Back at home, Harry carrying the bag of chicken in his hands while Eggsy unlocks the door and steps inside first, Eggsy sets about turning on the foyer lights while unwrapping his scarf as he goes. Harry sets the bag of chicken down on the dining room table, watches Eggsy move about his house, his home, with such unprecedented ease that it makes Harry’s heart swell with affection, a tingly, funny sort of lurch that trickles across his nerves. Eggsy shrugs out of his suit jacket, draping it over the back of a nearby chair with a glance, then leans forward to click on the table lamp by the fireplace.

Harry still feels caught in that hazy, half-dream place he found himself back in the car, watching Eggsy as if through a lens: bathed in the warm white light shining from the lamp and from the hall, framed in the comforting adornments of what is slowly becoming their home, fitting so effortlessly in between and into all the little things Harry had built his life to be.

“You forgot to take your shoes off,” Harry tells Eggsy, who’s standing by the hutch in the corner of the room, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling them up in concise, practiced motions; how Harry had taught him, how to fold the fabric as not to wrinkle and crease it, recalling vividly his own absurd elation at watching Eggsy unveil the creamy expanse of his forearm, exposing the scattering of moles below his elbow that Harry had so terribly wanted to press his lips to, to know the taste of his skin just there.

How he had gotten that chance, not long after; how he had spent the last year mapping all the parts of Eggsy that Eggsy had wanted to reveal to him, coming back again to his favourite parts so he would never forget. Delighting in the fact that he was able to _have_ favourite parts of this remarkable, gorgeous boy and how this boy let him have them, with the same reverence and tenderness returned.

Eggsy has the decency to look sheepish but merely toes off his Oxfords in the dining room, pushing them back against the baseboards before bending down to pull a bottle from the wine rack. He dangles a bottle of Merlot by the neck from his fingertips.

“A white wine would go better,” Harry says, plucking the bottle from Eggsy’s grasp and setting it back in the cubby hole. “A Viognier I think will do nicely, from the Rhône Valley.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes but the smile gives him away, his amusement and fond irritation. “Whatever, Harry. Just grapes, innit?” 

Harry doesn’t say a word when Eggsy doesn’t bother with the fiddly wine glasses tucked into the farthest corner of a cupboard in the kitchen, instead taking up two crystal tumblers and pouring the wine nearly to the brim.

They eat straight from the cardboard cartons, paper napkins spread over their laps. Eggsy peels off the skin with one hand to eat it first, sucks the grease from his fingers and thumb, catches Harry staring and Eggsy waggles his eyebrows only somewhat seductively until his face breaks in a stifled laugh, his shoulders shaking with his attempt to stop.

“I love you,” Harry says, really out of nowhere.

He thinks he doesn’t say it enough, has failed to say it enough. Has taken for granted having Eggsy in his arms when he wakes in the morning, having his voice in his ear—whether it’s him who is abroad or Eggsy who is miles from him—whenever he wishes it, having the reminders of the ordinary way which they were now: Eggsy drinking his tea while he wandered aimlessly around the house in the evenings, his bursts of laughter when he was watching telly in the afternoons, all the sounds of his living—his music playing from the office, his footsteps on the stairs, his yawns and muttering and whisper-soft words in the morning when he’s come up behind Harry to rest his sleep-heavy body against Harry’s back, his voice carrying and settling into all the dusty, forgotten corners of Harry’s house when he comes home, calling out for JB first, Harry second.

How he’s taking it for granted now, how Eggsy seems to seamlessly exist in between all the expected limitations and boundaries, how he takes Harry there without a second thought. Eggsy, in his expensive Kingsman suit, drinking stupidly expensive wine from Harry’s scotch glasses and eating fried chicken from a cardboard bucket, grease and salt on his fingers and lips, his socked feet planted on Harry’s thighs where he sways his knees absentmindedly, knocking Harry’s own knees together. 

How simple, easy, wonderful it was and Harry didn’t let Eggsy know that.

Eggsy smiles around the rim of his glass, his cheeks flushed prettily, his lips shiny from the wine he’s just drank and Harry wants to lick it from his mouth, suck Eggsy’s lips between his teeth. “I know you do,” he says. “I love you, too.”

“I’m lucky to have you,” Harry says. He wipes his hand off on his napkin, covers Eggsy’s foot with his palm, slides his hands up until his fingers come to wrap around the bare skin of ankle, and Eggsy watches his movements with bright, flickering eyes. “I’m grateful for you, Eggsy. So incredibly grateful, for all you’ve given me.”

“Harry, c’mon,” Eggsy murmurs, his voice gone soft and wistful, and he blinks at where Harry’s thumb rubs over his skin and then blinks blearily up at Harry, and he says no more.

They have an early morning tomorrow; Harry is being sent off to Wales for a day-mission and Eggsy is being herded down to R&D to test a new line of explosives. From there, who knows where they will end up. When they will see each other again, if it will be a quick kiss before collapsing into bed for much needed sleep, if it will be a smile in passing in the vast caverns of HQ, if Harry will only have the sound of Eggsy’s voice over the comms late into the night, the happy drowsy rasp of his voice keeping Harry awake, just one minute longer.

For tonight, Harry has this. He has Eggsy, all to himself, in all the infinite, wonderful ways he has been given. And he doesn’t plan to waste a moment of it.

“Did I tell you that you looked gorgeous today?” Harry says to Eggsy, who tips his head back and breathes out and smiles.

“Hmm. You did. When we was getting ready. Then before we even left the house. And once more in the car.”

“Well you were. You are.”

“So, tell me again.”

So, Harry does.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr!](http://notbrogues.tumblr.com)


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